Anything (Full Murderhobo Book 2)
by Dakota Krout
When I started reading this, I was quite surprised at the time shift. Although, logically speaking, it is a three book complete series, so we were never going to get a blow-by-blow account of the main characters lives, I still found it a little jarring. After a few chapters, I relaxed back into the story, so it didn’t take long to immerse myself again.
The bulk of the story is about The Four being sent to the Scarrocco Desert, with Andre tasked to heal it. We get a brief insight into the politics of their kingdom where we realise the King and his son do not get along at all, and that King want to exile them via a quest to protect them. I feel like the full ins and outs of this leave me with a lot of questions.
Luke comes up with a cracking comment when his teammates are discussing him in front of him.
“Talk like I’m not here and I’ll make sure I’m not”
We know Luke by now and we know full well that he will act on those words with no second thought or prevarication and I felt a certain admiration for him when he said this. This is also a key moment for me in Luke’s character development, because I could see that he was changing in some way. No, he never changes from being a single-minded one-directional murderhobo, never fear! What it does signal is the beginning of a situational awareness towards his companions. In fact, we seem he take an active part in trying to work on his interactions with his team mates. He is getting hints from a book he reads, and since he is only about killing, and we never see him read, you have to wonder when he actually does read this one book, especially since he seems to dislike books, and trees, and written words.
In this book, we see a massive growth in our characters. I guess this is in some part due to age, some part to charisma or intelligence increases and in some part by exposure and experience.
Zed trails behind them all, as usual. No matter how much Zed grows, he is always treated like the poor relation in a way, because no mater how astounding his growth, it would never catch him up to the others. We see occasional gems, like a throwaway comment letting us know that Zed has done some amazingly kind things that no one is really aware of, not even us. Zed is hilarious in chapter 37, when Taylow says she needs to get a portion of unicorn into him as soon as possible because he is in a situation, shall we say, so as not to give a spoiler. Zed opens his mouth, and Taylor says “Guess again, buddy”, so he tries to roll over… I had to laugh a lot when a horrified Taylor says
“No. No. Sheesh! It goes in your nose.”
I feel somewhat sorry for the characters, because despite their growth, it feels like they are left floundering and finding their own way without the societal support you would imagine others would have just by virtue of living amongst others. They spend a lot of time with just each other in this book, and that can’t be ideal when they are already somewhat dysfunctional.
In book one I felt sorry for Luke. In Book two, I felt sorry for André. He is so in love with Taylor, and there is no simpering, silly mooning over her, but we see the things he does that goes against everything he believes in because she asks him to do them. We can almost feel pieces of his sould charring away.
Whilst the story doesn’t seem to move much for about tewo thirds of the book, towards the end of it, they achieve something immense. There is another boss fight and there is a dragon! The dragon is nothing like we have met in fantasy books before, which is refreshing, and, in fact, we don’t get to know a huge amount about it. But the chapters where they fulfill their quest are noteworthy. The overriding thought I had was that this would be a wet dream for someone who creates special effects.
Although a slow starter, I enjoyed this book and am looking forward to reading the last book, book three. also, great new word: continenticide! Yes! Perfect for OP MC’s in stories like this. We need to keep this word for always!